


Fixing It Backwards

by TrashyTime



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Dark Peter Parker, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, In more ways than one, M/M, No Smut, Peter Parker Makes Bad Decisions, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Needs it, Protective Peter Parker, Time Travel, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark had therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashyTime/pseuds/TrashyTime
Summary: Peter makes a choice. He wants to claim it's for the world, but it's for him. His selfish need not to feel so alone.He knows he can fix it. It's how he makes it through every day. He's tried going to the past, to fix it in other timelines, too many times to count. Even his extremely long lived body is beginning to age past being able to do all that needs done to fix everything that needs to be fixed. So he steps into his younger self.Except Tony finds him early, and Peter is suddenly confronted with how he has fixed everything else, but himself. In a world made better, where does a broken Peter Parker fit?(The answer is, as it always was, beside Tony, but that can only come with time.)
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 93
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	Fixing It Backwards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheeon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheeon/gifts).



> I truly hope that even without smut, this makes Sheeon at least smile a little. 
> 
> I had tried it with smut, but it didn't really flow and was a bit too creepy for me. This was the rework, and I actually really love how it is still incredibly dark and a twisting on the age difference, without skipping into that noncon dubcon Tony not being aware of how Peter isn't his Peter fic I first wrote. ( I may someday that isn't 2020, clean that up and publish it on anon.)

Peter knows it’s wrong even before he finishes tweaking with the suit and setting up the chamber. He knows that this is- changing things for mostly selfish reasons. Abandoning this world for a different one. A better one. He could go back as he is, he could probably avert things without the chamber. But he can say with near absolute certainty, that this way _will_ work this time. That it allows him what he can not have any other way is neither here nor there. 

His actions, if they work, will ensure Morgan is never born. Will ensure Thanos never performs a snap. Ensures Tony will never get back together with Pepper and absolutely everything will change, from the environment to the course of human history. 

This isn’t at all what Tony wanted for him. But this timeline’s Tony died when he was snapped back into being at 17, lifetimes ago, so Tony can’t stop him. 

Beck had been, eye opening. Both times. All of the shit that followed him the first time, the decades of suffering and the losses that came after his identity reveal… they were too much. He was given too much, too young. The whole world had looked to him to step into Tony’s shoes, and then had torn him to pieces when he stumbled in them. He had never understood the fuck you persona Tony had cultivated, until he was 18 and being hounded on every level with no one in his corner who could do a damned thing to help stop it. 

He had survived. He had cultivated his own image and learned how to just not care what they said. Or at least to not show it. He wasn’t given any other options. He had watched Morgan rise and watched her fall time and again. He had trained with and helped heroes only to lose them. He had walked on alien planets and saved the one he was born to a hundred times over before he could not save it from itself. He was old, he was tired… but most of all, he knew, deep in his bones, “I _can_ fix it, this time.” He spoke it aloud. He meant so many things, but the thing he meant most was the fact that Tony always was the only person who could meet him as his intellectual equal and not be upset about his quirks.

He spoke the certainty of it into being like Strange would cast a spell. His wrist has age spots where he adjusts the cuffs and starts fine tuning the targeting. He won’t get it wrong this time. He isn’t going back as himself in a different body.

Some could argue, in fact, he has argued with himself, that what he is about to do is- criminally unfair. Basically killing some other past him well before his time by shoving him, much like Steve, into an older body out of his time and world. But he knows himself. If he could ask that him, would he give his life to save billions, the answer would be without hesitation. Yes. It’s all he will need to know to be comforted with the losses he will feel. Especially as idealistic as he was at the time. The idea of being like Iron Man, all that will be most important. The life model decoys will be good company for him. 

He steps into the chamber, and he adjusts the suit. The station will help, and only the chamber will destroy itself after he has cleared the room. It’s fine. This body has another few decades in it, easily. It’s nothing young or as spry as it once was- but… It’s a quiet and steady life. And he has left messages for his past self. It’s the only way to fix it all, is what they all say, in various levels of detail. 

He is blinded by the chamber- brighter and harsher- till all at once he is blinking awake in bed. His Iron Man backpack is flung over the end of the bed, one lost in the battle of New York. He has to save the building. Then he has to ensure he is bit, and saves Uncle Ben. And then, he will start to create the rest of the tech he has memorized for years in preparation for his plans. 

When the skies open above Manhattan, there will be an unknown actor helping. One that will talk with Tony through routing programs and dead drops to help guide his tech in the right ways. To avert the Accords before they even begin. To stop Strucker and prevent the creation of the Scarlet Witch and thus Ultron, and thus, Vision, and on and on the changes go. Eventually, he will be in such a new world that he won’t be able to map events out anymore. But for now- he has all the locations. 

He has all the tools he needs to destabilize HYDRA. He has the contact program for Captain Marvel. He has the coordinates for Thanos to send to her at the given time he will be sending her the information. He has, so many things, to help avert all these crises before they come to fruition. 

All he has to do is stay hidden till he wants Tony to discover him. The teenage genius, the clairvoyant wunderkind. The hacker and sometimes superhero. 

He manages it for over five years, till he is almost 17, and HYDRA is almost completely, if messily, dismantled. It was a defining moment for this new timeline, the Avengers working together for years after the battle of NY, sans Thor, to avert the larger crisis at hand. The Winter Soldier is extracted. Sam Wilson and Riley get tapped based on hints to Tony, and brought in along with Rhodey for air support.

It is filled with unplanned complications, far more brutal than anticipated. Natasha almost dies, and Cap has scars he didn’t have in the other timeline. However, he also has more real smiles, so Peter assauges the guilt he feels. He can’t stop the way he feels about the loss of thousands of other, innocent lives taken in the death throes of HYDRA. 

Captain Marvel dismantles Thanos’s ship and manages to beat him, while Beck and the disillusioned scientists that had helped him are either eliminated in accidents, implicated as HYDRA or hired into a new shell company made with money from a few mobile games he coded up to release a few months before the supremely viral and wildly popular genre defining games they were modeled after released in his various forays into other timelines. He had learned a lot from Pepper, and his years of living in the eye of those various legal and media storms in his original timeline. 

That the scientists were working on tech he actually did need to avert other, long term issues, was, well. Neither here nor there. He was only one set of hands- without the freedom to spend all his hours in the labs, or a fleet of AIs to assist him. He has become a loner, spending less time with his fellow students and signing himself into advanced college courses online. He knows more about funding, and ways to get himself tools to start off, then in using the profits to create more profits and specialized tools.

Oddly, his very loner bookworm nature that he has cultivated is part of what clues JARVIS in while searching for who the hacker and helper Clotho_Cassandra is behind the handle. 

Tony chooses to confront him with an ambush, the same ambush as last time, except Ben is right there with May in fawning over Tony. Peter feels awkward, staring at the scene, having so long expected another few years to mature before he meets Tony. 

The bedroom is- entirely new ground. “So you’re either from the future, and you’ve changed enough to no longer have a complete lay of the land, or you got one hell of a welcome to puberty superpower, but it only lasted for a while. Which is it?” Peter doesn’t know how to handle that. 

He doesn’t know how to answer this, as he hasn’t really prepared. So the truth wiggles out sideways. “Kinda. It was a one shot thing but I still get- flashes if it's an immediate danger to me.” Tony’s eyes narrows his eyes and assesses Peter. 

Peter has not felt his physical age till right this moment. He has suffered through advanced placements and college classes as the wunderkind, but he has not, has not allowed himself, to dabble with much more. He has had too many things to take up his time to explore relationships, not just because he isn’t into kids and anyone willing to touch him over the last few years, is probably going to be too young or not a good choice. 

But here he is, feeling Tony’s gaze and it is like every drop of awkward he had burned out of him by the media in a future that never will be is back in a rushing torrent, a flood that sweeps through him. His gaze is drawn to Tony’s lips and back up, a thick and loud swallow dipping his throat. 

Behind his desk is a close up of Tony from a magazine. He endures the teasing Ben and May give him, because it reminds him why he endures- the little things. But it was definitely noticed by the man himself. As is his awkward growing arousal. Tony seems to assess him, and shakes his head in a soft chiding manner. “That’s a doomed crush, kid.” 

Peter snorts, and he doesn’t mean to, but it blurts out, “Not as doomed as when you died in my arms, or beside me or-” His lips snap shut and Tony’s own eyes widen a little before that look of processing rapid information shifts flits across his face. Peter trembles and he can’t help but hold his breath. He is nearly vibrating in place and it is all- so much. 

“One shot, huh?” Tony asks, wryly, shifting where he leans on the desk. Peter’s chin goes up, before he pastes on his own media smile. It aches, like a suit too small and constrictive to move in. 

“Last shot. The Save The Whales - slingshot the sun kind of deal. I got one chance to fix it all- and I took it.” He tries not to feel the weight of just what that shot meant.

He fails, he is physically 16, even if his mind is twice Tony’s age now. He struggles with that load of emotions, of the way his body is not quite prepared for holding up even if his mind is. Should be. There is dampness in his eyes, and his jaw is not quite able to firm without clenching hard enough his teeth squeak. And Tony’s watching him with eyes that seem to jump to some conclusion, maybe watching the smile or other tells Peter is not aware he’s giving. 

“Rodenberry wept, kid. Take it in another time, you were a little different.” Peter looks away, wanting, needing to not use that media smile but unsure what else to do. He feels gutted in ways he hadn’t been by any of this before. He suddenly really feels the weight of what he has chosen. Of how he sent what amounted to a kid, even if it was him, to a distant future. How he has done all these things, things he is not proud of but felt were, are, necessary… but did them in a body he should not have taken from himself. 

His arms creep up to cling to himself with white knuckles. “You left me the labs and Happy’s help, left me with KAREN and JOCASTA and you died saving everyone- and everyone looked to your protege to become the new Iron Man. I wasn’t ready. I was never ready. And I tried- to fix it. Messages in a bottle. Different timelines. It. The world needs you. Needs the Avengers whole. I- _it was the only way_.” His voice cracks and he is trying to present like he is okay, but he learned how to mask from this man and he knows that awful media smile says more than even this cracking apart. 

His breathing is picking up and he is shaking, all the weight of his actions and their repercussions are dogpiling onto him all at once. Because in a way- they are. Tony was alive, but he wasn’t here before. He didn’t see him. He wasn’t close enough Peter could smell his cologne and the coconut tang of his musk. Peter wants nothing like he wants Tony’s arms. Wants nothing like he had for those brief few years when he tried going back in a suit, just sending himself back, the same age as Tony, equals in every way. 

He wants those arms around him and to lean into him despite being the far stronger one, and be kissed. The stupid arousal is at least gone, but the void in his belly is not a fun replacement. 

He startles out of his shivering, as a warm palm, more familiar than his own, rests on his shoulder. Steve. The others, they’re tactile in pictures. Tony’s different. Everything is different. Better. 

Except Peter. His eyes well up more and his breathing hitches, but he wants to pretend he’s okay. That he isn’t falling apart for no good explainable reason, just because Tony is watching him.

“Hey. Hey, kid, it’s okay.” Tony tries and Peter is not. He’s the one not okay. 

“I wanted to be an adult when we met. I wanted- I want, you don’t understand.” He can feel tears leaking and his heart feels like it’s trying to leap out of his chest. He is shaking under that hand and he knows Tony hates messy emotions like this, but he can’t stop. He can’t make it stop. 

Tony’s brows are beetled and he looks like he’s thinking and his own jaw is doing small flexes as he chews through whatever it is he sees. Peter squeezes his eyes shut to not see it. Whatever it is. 

Tony’s arms wrap around him, and Peter doesn’t know how to process this. It, took years- the few times he got this. Years to get a hug. 

Except Tony has the Avengers. A healthier Avengers. He has- family. Peter is crying into Tony’s shoulder and he doesn’t know why the idea that he gave Tony the Avengers as a healthy support structure, makes him feel like he’s been stabbed, but it does. 

“Hey, hey. I’m alive. You did it.” Tony is saying, smart and able to think on his feet, he wonders what Tony thinks, what he thinks he knows. He’s so far outside his own comfort zone, outside the realm of anything he knows. Tony is as different, better, as Peter is worse. 

Peter’s voice is wrecked, and he doesn’t mean to say what hurts the most but it spills out the second he opens his mouth- “But you don’t need me- and won’t want me, like this.” It hurts, it hurts so much. 

Tony swallows and snorts, rocking them a little, something Sam Wilson would sometimes do to help calm a preteen Morgan. A girl that will never be. Because of Peter. He feels more copper on his tongue and tears on his cheeks. “Yeah, that is definitely not sounding like you were just some mentee junior superhero there.” His voice is soft, the same way he would talk to himself in the lab. 

Peter can’t lie. He can’t fix himself. “I was the first time- but every time I tried to fix it- I- we click. When we met as adults- that energy we had when I was 15 the first time- it grows into what it can and should be. We’re matched intellectually, and in bed we fit, a matched set, T’hy’la in every way. That’s… that’s what we’re supposed to be.” What he wishes they could be again. What he wanted, so desperately. But there is no way. Not with him as young as he is. 

Tony snorts, rocking Peter and saying with a wry twist, “Guessing I inflicted a lot of Star Trek on you, over the years.” Peter cracks a smile, laughing, “You used to get so huffy when I would say “that really old movie” and then reference the original trilogy Star Wars or Terminator or Back to the Future. I- when I would lose you- I, it was comforting, to watch. So I did a lot of it, when I couldn’t work any more in the labs.” 

Tony acts more like the Tony he had known for almost a decade. The one that died not to Thanos but to Beck. Peter can’t help but laugh a little helplessly at that realization. He actually killed Beck in this timeline. Made sure of it himself. 

He has blood on his hands, as young as they appear. Tony holds him a little tighter. “Hey, if it’s something that happens- we let it happen as it will or won’t. A very wise man told me not to borrow trouble. I do anyways, but it’s not like I can’t afford it.” 

The laughter that time is more genuine. Peter’s eyes finally stopping the traitorous leaking and his arms unwinding from their death grip on his own sides to loop gently and carefully around Tony’s own waist. He breathes in deeper, and the smell of home, of safety and comfort and Tony fills his nose. 

This time, the shudder is like a release. One he can feel as keenly as if he had dropped a jumbo jet from off his shoulders. Tony makes a small sound, and his hold gets a little tighter. “Hey, you mentioned the lab. I assume you have one you can access at Web Tech Services?” Peter startles a little and then blinks at Tony, gawping a little as he pulls back to stare into his face. 

Tony laughs a little himself, “Hey, you looked like you could be a supervillain- the number of my angry ex employees? Raised some red flags. Instead you have a benefits package to more than rival my own and are specializing in both mobile games and ozone replenishing and reversal of climate change. Your little tech demo last month for the plastic collecting buoys was impressive, even if it was delivered by a clever animation and talking program instead of in person. I’m guessing you came back to do more than save superheroes?” 

Peter isn’t lying when he says yes. It’s just so much more complicated. He’s changing everything. It could end in catastrophe. It could save everything. But what is most important to him right this minute is how Tony’s hand slides down his arm to squeeze his own hand. 

“Yes. But I can’t openly run my company yet.” Tony’s brow raises, “Why not?” Peter snorts, “Because who is going to trust a company run by a teenager?” 

Tony grins, that media shark tank ready grin, “Well, you are consulting with the best name in green energy, after all. How about, we work together in your labs sometimes. Work on projects, only the environmental ones, and see what happens.” His hand gently squeezes and it is nothing like when he was 15, this is not mentor and mentee. This is- something else. Some ground between the equals they were in a few timelines, and - something new. 

Peter squeezes back, and he knows it’s not perfect, but he has time to fix it. All he has to do is show Tony. It may take some time, but he’s got that. They both do. The reactor isn’t under that shirt, and Tony has less wrinkles than he should. He definitely used Extremis the way Peter hinted he should look at, while letting him know where the AIM labs, and Killian, was. 

Peter breathes deeper, feeling steady again. “Yeah. It’s nothing on your labs on the 69th floor, and doesn’t hold a candle to sub-basement 3, if you have them in the same places, but it’s a good starting lab.” The flow, of just- running at full speed with Tony beside him, is as comforting as Tony himself. 

They lose hours every time they meet, and if, by the time he turns 17, Tony is spending as much time with him as he is in his own labs or in the skies as Iron Man… well… Peter’s willing to admit that he’s dangled the bigger threat being here at home, more than a few times. He also has told Tony about how he handled Thanos- and what Tony saw in the wormhole will never come to Earth.

But that- is tomorrow’s problem. For today, Peter has Tony’s hand on his, and he may be the worst Peter Parker- but he’s fixing it. One day at a time.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are lifeblood.  
> Flames will only be mocked and deleted.  
> Critiques with good intentions gently delivered welcomed, but please remember this is 2020 and as such, the key word is gently. (Spelling errors and the like, feel free to just bap me!)


End file.
